It was 1964. We were 8 years old. Ron and I hatched this really stupid plan to shoplift a couple of ballpoint pens from Famous-Barr at Chippewa and Kingshighway. If we each had $15 ink pens - just think how much better our handwriting would be. And the other kids with plain BIC pens would be envious.
So after school one weekday we met at Central Hardware on South Kingshighway. The plan was to buy something inexpensive to get a Central Hardware sack, take the bus to Famous-Barr, and shoplift a couple of expensive pens from the stationery department.
Step one went fine - we had our sack from Central Hardware and got on the bus to Famous-Barr. When we got to the stationery department it was really crowded. So we decided to look around for a while and wait for the crowd to thin out.
We had to look very suspicious - two 8 year olds hanging around the stationery department for over an hour. I'll bet we stood out like a sore thumb.
The crowd finally dwindled down a bit and we made our move. Up the ink pen aisle, we each grabbed a pen and slipped them into the Central Hardware sack. We did it! We then headed toward the exit.
About 15 paces toward the exit and a man and woman came up behind us and grabbed us each by the arm and said "you're coming with us, boys." Uh-oh. The jig was up.
They took us down a long hallway and into an office. There they asked us to dump the contents of the bag out on the desk. I did. Then they picked up the ink pens and said "What are these?" Well, uh, uh. "We know you boys stole these in the stationery department, we watched you do it." We both said we were really sorry and would never do it again.
Then they said there were calling our parents to tell them what happened. First they called Ron's house. I think Ron's mom told him he would get an ass-whooping from his dad because Ron started crying. Then they called my mom. She told them "spank him good and send him home". They said the spanking would be left to my parents.
They told each of us to never come in to Famous-Barr again without our parents and then escorted us to the exit.
I thought to myself, "it could have been worse". Yeah we could have been taken to jail and locked up. But they just called our moms. That wasn't so bad.
By the time I got home, mom had already forgotten any details about what happened. So when dad got home, she had me tell him what happened. I made something up about Ron getting caught taking something and Farmous-Barr sent us both home and that was that.
Ron and I never talked about The Great Ballpoint Pen Caper of 1964. His parents didn't let him hang out with me the rest of that school year. We were never really friends again after that, even though we both attended the same grade school through 8th grade.
I would never forget The Great Ballpoint Pen Caper of 1964. And it did teach me to never try that again.
So it goes.
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